Star Wanderer

Takes place immediately after Exile's Son

Jim Park

Marnist Kinkla flipped the switches that brought the concussion missiles on line as an other warning for Xander Parck to surrender blared from the comm. Speaker. She banked hard to port, following a pair of TIE fighters, knowing that the other pair would soon be on her tail. Once she was in position behind the first set of TIEs they both broke in opposite directions. Great, now there were three of them that would be behind her.

Her thumb rested on the missile trigger, only waiting to get a lock on the target. Soon enough the reticule went from yellow to red and she stabbed down twice. No sooner were the missiles away then the Whistling Comet was rocked by a volley of laser cannon fire from the rear. The first TIE never had a chance, both missiles slammed into the solar panel pylons and detonated.

Clear of forward obstructions Mar hauled back on the hyperdrive levers, the stars elongated, and then swirled into the safest blue black of hyperspace she had ever seen. At sixteen standard years old Mar knew the dangers of blind jumping, but she also knew that it was marginally safer than facing three TIE fighters and rest of the squadron that was just now getting clear of the atmosphere in vain. Anyway, the proximity sensor would pull the Comet out of hyperspace before she got to close to anything dangerous.

The Comet shuddered as it reverted to realspace near a lush green planet. The sensor showed minimal, a spaceport, in the northern hemisphere, but nothing blatantly Imperial. Mar clasped the control column with shaking hands and angled the ship towards the planet. Best to go to ground in case the Imps followed her.

•••

Mar sat at the bar of the worst cantina she'd ever been in, clutching a glass of Lum as she contemplated what to do. The adrenalin rush from the dogfight had tired her out and her brain was not working the way it should. Xan would know what to do, Xan always knew what to do, and he could always think. She could go back to Katal, Xan may not love her anymore, but he still cared enough about her to take her back, she would just have to get those cannon scars repaired on the Comet before going back. That damn Caridan he'd married though, she would only try to drive them further apart.

It seemed that the only option left to her was to hang around on this planet that she didn't even know the name of, or the system that it was in. Mar rested her hand on the grip of the DL-44 Xan had given her. The blaster and the ship were the last tangible things she had from him.

"Hello." Said a middle aged man as he sat down next to her at the bar. "I couldn't help but notice that you're alone and you seem rather distracted."

"Yeah, well running from Imperials will do that to ya." Mar said and sipped her drink.

"Are you a smuggler?" The white bearded man asked.

"Yeah." Mar responded. "Are you going to turn me into the Imps, or some bounty hunter you have a deal with?"

"Have you ever, or would you ever smuggle for the Rebellion?" The man asked in a whisper

"Yes, to both."

"Come with me. I work with the Rebellion, and I operate a safe house. I'll give you food and shelter, and I can get you false identification, and whatever else you need." He continued to whisper.

"I need the registration on my ship changed." Mar responded.

"I can do that." He answered conspiratorially. "But we shouldn't talk here. My speeder's waiting outside."

"Right." Mar said, not thinking. The promise of a safe place was all she needed to hear, and she completely forgot all the risks she could be taking. For all she knew she was walking into an Imperial trap, or a bounty hunters stun cuffs. The possibility of being safe amongst the Rebels was what Mar wanted to hear, and it was all her brain could do to answer the mans next question.

"Have you fought with the Rebellion?" He asked. "You look very familiar.

"I was at Hoth, and I've flown smuggling runs for them a few times."

"You worked on the ships, didn't you, I knew I'd seen you someplace."

"Yeah, I worked modifying the T-47s, and I flew as a gunner."

"I wouldn't know, I left just after the attack started." He shrugged. "Come, we'll go to my house. I can give you a room, and food, and all the other things you need."

•••

The man escorted from the cantina to a waiting speeder. It was all Mar could do to try and stay awake. They drove a long way from the main settlement, to an extravagant mansion, with a fence running around the whole area as far as Mar could see. There was a meal waiting in an ornate dinning room. The man and his wife sat and watched as Mar ate. They were both slightly overweight. He had gray hair, and a beard that covered his face. His wife had the same gray hair. At one point a young women came through and cast a side long glance at Marnist. Even though Mar wasn't paying attention she could tell there was something wrong with her. When Mar finished the meal, the couple escorted her to a bedroom on the second floor. She was asleep almost before she put her head to the pillow.

•••

Mar woke up the next morning with her head feeling like a Star Destroyer had landed on it. She was face down on a bed, but not the soft silken bed she had gone to sleep on the night before. The blankets were coarse against her skin, and there were at least two other bodies touching her. Slowly, with aching muscles she pushed herself from the sleeping pallet. It was still dark wherever she was, there were rows of bunks fashioned out of wood three high throughout the long building. It was hot, it was dark, and it smelled of dozens of unwashed species. Mar rolled over on her back.

"Good, you're awake." A Bothan said from his perch at the end of the bed.

"Who are you? Where am I?" Mar croaked.

"I don't think any of us know where we are." The Bothan answered. "What we do know is that we're slaves on a shroom farm somewhere in the Mid Rim. As far as your first question, I'm Avik or Vik for short."

"A slave!" Mar exclaimed, and scrabbled for her blaster, that had been removed. Her boot knife was missing also. All she had left were the clothes on her back, and the boots on her feet.

"Yep, a slave, except they're to cheap to buy slaves from the traders so they prey on helpless travelers who find themselves in this system. They go to the cantinas, and tapcafes passing as good people, they bring you back here, drug you and the next day you're out working in the shroom fields."

Mar's anger simmered as she clenched and unclenched her fist repeatedly. Her first thought was of escape, but surely their wouldn't be anybody here if it was easy. Mar didn't know what to do, Xan would know what to do, he always knew what to do. Rydell and him could get out of anything.

"You shouldn't even waste time thinking about it. Escape is impossible. I've seen a lot of beings try it, and it always ends up the same, they get killed by the overseers in front of all the other slaves the morning after they try to get out. They use a pack of howelrunners to hunt down anybody trying to get out. Most of us think that there's a perimeter fence out there somewhere, but if anybodies found it they haven't lived long enough to tell anybody. Hey, what's your name."

"Marnist Kinkla, call me Mar." She answered slipping off her right boot, she pulled at a point just off the tip and pulled out the piano wire hidden there. "This will help," She started, "This will do a lot more." She said pulling the small thermal detonator from the heal of her other boot. The Bothan's fur rippled.

"Where did you get those?" He asked wide eyed.

"I was a member of an Imperial covert operations group called IPEC."

"The explorers?" He asked quizzically.

"So you haven't been here to long. The exploration thing was a cover." She said. "Just think about it, I'm sure your famed Bothan spynet knew that." Mar fired off the verbal shot.

"I wasn't involved with the 13pinet, I wouldn't be here if I was." He answered.

"Everybody out! Get to work!" Suddenly light burst into the barracks, framing the human overseer in the doorway. On that command all the beings huddled in the barracks got up and moved towards the door. Shuffling feet with heads hanging low.

"Come on." Avik tugged at Mar's tunic. "They whip whoever they find in here after everybody else is out. They don't care about us at all, cuz we don't cost them any money."

"Alright." Mar grunted as her whole body protested moving. She had to squint once outside. The morning sun was low un the sky, and very bright.

"Keep your head down, don't make eye contact with the overseers." Vik whispered from behind. "Don't talk either, they'll whip you any chance they get."

With that said Mar looked down at her feet and clenched her mouth shut. Out of the corner of her eye she managed to count at least half a dozen overseers, and three or four wild looking beasts. She had never wanted a blaster more in her life.

"Everyday they take us out to the fields and make us pinch the shrooms." Vik continued in a low hissing whisper. "I'll show you how to do it when we get there."

"Stop talking!" A guard roared, his neuronwhip cracking and sizzling over the demoralized line of slaves.

They walked among the rows of bulbous brown vegetables, waiting for the overseer to stop and yell at them to work. Mar's body ached with every step. Finally they stopped, Mar almost walked into the person ahead of her.

"Get to work!" A voice bellowed, and all the beings in the grim procession got down on hands and knees, or whatever the equivalent was.

"They don't give us any tools, because then they would become weapons. There's a certain way to pick these things." Avik whispered. Their shoulders were touching as Vik started the lesson. "The shrooms are very delicate, there are poison polyps on the inside, if they move to much the polyps break and the shroom is useless. There's also more stuff to make them grow back halfway down the stem. The overseers get angry if to many can't be regrown. Pinch it right here and pull off the top."

•••

Wherever she was it was hot, and it wasn't better noon the following day. The whole first day had been spent picking the shrooms, the whole time Mar was thinking of escape. She could do it, she had the training of the Empire behind her, the best hand to hand combat. The only way they could beat her was by shear strength or overwhelming numbers. She paused to look down at her hands, cracked, and bleeding, Vik had forgotten to mention the thorns, and tough skin of the shrooms. One thing that had bothered her though, was the daughter, the whisps of her memory from the first night seemed so distant, and unreal that she couldn't remember much accept the fact that the other just wasn't right, but Mar knew that she would find out.

Mar's whole body ached as she stopped for a moment, her back making popping sounds as she straightened, to watch the young women maker her way through the rows of shrooms. The sun bounced and played off her hair. Mar noticed the girl's good figure, but not enough to stop everyman on Corbata.

"Hey Mar, get back to work." Vik whispered from his knees. "If she sees you you're gonna get whipped."

Mar knew she should put her head down and keep picking the shrooms, but she still hadn't seen the women's face. Vik began to pull on Marnist's sleeve, hoping she would look down at him again, and avoid the whipping that was coming. She didn't.

The daughter turned around and the action reminded Mar of a holomovie, but then she saw the scar on the side of her face that tracked along her face part way across her forehead, and evidently back along her skull where it was hidden by her hair.

"Bring her to me!" The girl shouted, pointing a finger at Mar. Mar snapped out of her trance looking quickly to the ground, and set to work furiously picking shrooms.

Mar had only managed to ruin a pair of shrooms before the overseers grabbed her armpits and dragged her to the young women. The guards dropped her there one of them placing a heavy boot on her back, keeping her on her hands and knees.

"Why were you staring at me, slave?" The young women demanded. Mar tried to raise her head to give a defiant reply, and got a boot placed firmly on the back of her head as a result.

"I'd never seen you before." Mar finally answered instead.

"Well I've seen you before." She said calmly. "You're just like all the others who think they're better than me because you're prettier. You think you're better than me because you can get a handsome man! But you're not!" She roared.

Mar bit back her smug reply, and turned up her aggression compensator as she wanted to brake free and pummel the other women. All that really stopped her was what Vik had said as soon as a slave became a problem they were killed.

"Give me a whip!" The other commanded walking around Mar, there was a crackle as the neuron whip was turned on, and Mar flinched. As soon as the boot was lifted from her back the neuron whip cracked and sizzled as it arced through the air towards her back. Mar only whimpered after the first blow, knowing the screams would only magnify the slave owner's sadistic joy.

"You're not going to be prettier than anybody, anymore. Nobodies going to want you when I'm through." She taunted as she whipped. Mar again and again clenched her teeth as every whip tore away pieces of flight jacket, and then the flesh underneath that. She felt the warm wetness as blood trickled from her back onto her stomach. The tears welled up and began to stream down her face, but she didn't make a sound, and then she passed out.

•••

Vik watched as Mar stirred, she'd been unconscious since she'd been whipped. Once she'd passed out the guards had detailed Vik and a female Shistavanen to take Mar back to the barracks, still bleeding from the randomly crisscrossed gouges on her back. Together the two had dressed the wounds and laid her down on her stomach. She laid there for two hours. Now she was beginning to move again, she would be awake soon.

Finally after hours of waiting Mar lifted her head.

"I'm going to kill her!" Were the first words out of Marnist's mouth.

"You and what 13tormtrooper squad?" Vik countered.

"I'm getting out of here." Mar said, still looking down at the thing that passed for a pillow. Vik thought she might not have said that had she known the Shistavanen was there, but it had been said. Now they'd probably both be killed. Mar began to roll over onto her back.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Vik warned, but she didn't stop, and rolled over on her back, letting out a moan. She closed her eyes and clenched her teeth.

"I'm getting out of here, find me four others we can trust because if it's like you say it is we need numbers so someone can make it out of here." Mar opened her eyes and looked at Vik. "I thought you were the only one who had helped me. Who's this." Vik shrugged.

"Call me Drack." She said, in a growly version of Basic.

"Good." Mar answered.

"How are we getting out?" Drack asked.

Mar and Vik exchanged glances, hoping that the guards had not noticed the small thermal detonator and piano wire. They hadn't.

"Mar here was also trained in special operations under the Empire's IPEC program." Vik put in.

Drack's lip curled back exposing vicious white teeth. "The Empire." The wolfman said turning the word into a curse.

"I've left the Empire." Mar put in. "I spent the last half year smuggling from Katal."

"When do we go?" Drack growled.

"As soon as we have three more to go too." Mar answered. "I'll leave them up to you two, I don't anybody but Vik."

•••

Since she'd been whipped Mar had spent the day and night between Drack and Vik, and they never left her alone completely so that one of them might be able to hide her from the Mistress. Once they'd decided who they wanted to bring along it wasn't tough to get them to agree. The tough part was getting them to keep quiet about it. If the word spread among the slaves eventually the overseers would hear and Mar and her conspirators would be shot.

There was an other human, a Dug and a Bothan. Mar didn't recognize any of them when they finally met in the dark corner of the barracks. They didn't move, but just looked back at her, and her companions like ghosts. They all knew that somehow Marnist was their only way of getting out.

There in the dark Mar explained the plan.

•••

"Help, somebody help!" Vik shouted out of the bars of the barracks entrance. Mar moaned in the back. "Help, somebody's in here's got a hive virus!"

"What are you talking about?" One of the guards snapped.

"Someone in here has got a highly contagious hive virus, if she doesn't get out of here soon she'll die, and it'll spread to the rest of us."

"Yeah," He growled, "Step back."

Vik did and the door swung inward. The guard made his way quickly to Mar and Vik fell into step behind him, holding the piano wire in his hands. As soon as the guard came to a stop Vik jumped on his back and pulled the piano wire tightly around the human's neck, it was all over after a few seconds of struggling.

The group huddled around the body. Mar's combat instinct took over as she quickly searched his body for weapons. She gave Vik the blaster, and kept his vibroblade for herself. Slowly the group moved towards the open barracks door. Outside was an other human guard. The owners had never counted on snaring someone as combat capable as Marnist Kinkla.

Mar kicked the side of the guard's knee, with a sickening pop the joint gave way and he crumpled to the ground. Mar jammed the vibroblade into his side, before slamming her fist into the mans nose, driving his nose through his brain. Quickly mar distributed his weapons, and Drack dragged him into the barracks.

Mar led the group through the shadows from building to building. All six of the skulked quietly, they had to avoid the guards, and shooting at anything because that would give them away before they even had a chance.

Crouched in the shadows of the last building before the shroom field Mar peered into the darkness. There was no-one near them, there were no lights, no guard animals, all that stood between them and freedom was the shroom field and the rumored perimeter fence. Mar knew probably better than most of the others that just because there was no alarm now didn't guarantee that there wasn't going to be one. She looked back at the group, they all depended on her, they needed her to get them out, to free them from what they all had endured longer than she. Xan would be proud of the way she handled the responsibility.

"Alright, here's what we're going to do." Mar whispered, and the rest of them inched closer. "Vik, you're going to be the first one across, incase someone stumbles across us and we need cover fire. Who has the other blaster?" A disheveled, but strong looking man held the carbine foreword. "Vik and I will cover everybody else, remember, stay low and go fast." Mar peered around the corner, and her heart froze.

Fifty meters down the row of barracks was a guard, walking in there direction. "Drack, get up here." Mar whispered harshly, and the black brown blob with glowing eyes moved towards her. "There's a guard coming this way, if he gets to close you need to kill him, but you have to do it quietly." Mar whispered in the Shistavanen's ear, the last thing she needed now was the other getting panicky.

The footsteps thudded closer, and closer. Drack's muscles tensed, and the guard rounded the corner. With a mighty swipe of her paw Drack turned the mans head around, killing him before he had a chance to make a sound. With one paw she dragged him into the shadows, and Mar knew that there time was running out, someone was bound to miss the guards sooner or latter.

"Alright, quick, across the road." Mar ordered, and Vik was off across the path to the shrooms on the other side.

None of them knew where the fence was, all they knew was if they went far enough in one direction they would eventually find it. Mar knew that the shrooms fields would be the least patrolled area, as the space was too large, and the likelihood of and escapee getting that far was minimal. All that stood between them and freedom was the perimeter fence and a pack of howelrunners.

"Let's go." Mar said, and they started to move away from the barracks, towards freedom. "Stay low." She added as an afterthought, she never would have needed to mention it to the members of IPEC, but these slaves had none of the training she had.

They trapsed through the fields, not caring whether the shrooms would be good to pick tomorrow, because regardless of what happened, they wouldn't be picking them. Drack was up at the front with Mar because of her natural ability to see at night. Her ears twitched back and forth, searching for any sign of a guard or howelrunner.

On the opposite side of the shroom field was a grove of trees, and they all knew that it wouldn't be long before they found the fence. The fence was electrified, standing three meters high and topped by spools of razor wire. A good plan when the slaves are unarmed, and without tools, but Mar had her thermal detonator.

"Everybody take cover behind something." Mar ordered as she slipped the thermal detonator out of the heel of her boot. She set the timer so she would have enough time to get behind cover. The red lights started flashing in sequence, and she rolled the silvery orb to the base of the fence. Mar ran for the biggest tree trunk and pressed herself against it. The detonator went off, blowing a hole in the wire fence.

"Everybody through the fence, hurry." Mar snapped, and hefted her blaster carbine, waiting for the last of them to be through. The group moved into the forest a ways before they all looked at Mar, they had wanted to stop earlier, but Mar urged them on, knowing that by now someone would have noticed three dead guards, and the explosion.

"What do we do now, Leader?" Drack asked in growly Basic.

"We got to the spaceport and get to my ship." Mar answered. Drack began to sniff the air.

"Is something wrong?" Vik asked.

"No," Drack answered, nostrils flaring. "I'm finding the spaceport."

"Well which way?" The Bothan demanded. Drack looked back at the diminutive being as she would look down on prey on her homeworld, then she looked back at Mar.

"What do we do when we get to the spaceport, Leader?"

"We come back and free everybody else." Mar answered as if there was no other answer.

"It's that way?" Drack pointed.

"Alright, everybody follow Drack." Mar said, and they all began to trek towards the spaceport.

Two hours latter they were in the spaceport, the sun was just starting to show over the horizon.

"So how are we going to free all the other slaves?" Vik asked.

"Simple, we're going to take the Comet back to the compound, just as they're letting all the slaves out to work. I'm going to drop you guys in the fields to take out the overseers while I go to blow holes in the wall and fences so everybody can get out."

"Sounds a little risky." Vik answered.

"Without risk there is no victory." Mar quoted the IPEC dictum. "Let's go, it won't be long before they're out."

Once aboard the Comet Mar went straight for the Captain's quarters and found the weapons locker Xan had hidden under the sleeping pallet. Now they all had weapons, and enough ammunition. The Captain's chair on the was much more comfortable than Mar ever remembered it being as she ran through the preflight quickly.

"Don't move." Mar felt the cold durasteel of a blaster against her neck. "We're not going back to the compound, you're going to take me off planet so I can get home." It was Vik. Stupid, annoying back blading Bothan.

Mar snapped her right hand up pinning Vik's arm against the back of the seat, then she brought her left fist down in the middle of his forearm, snapping the bones. Vik howled in pain, and dropped the blaster harmlessly on the seat. There was a rustle from the back of the ship, and Drack was standing in the cockpit entrance, teeth bared and growling.

"Did you think you were going to get away with it?" Mar asked. "Did you forget that I have far more hand to hand training than you, and I know how to disarm people? Drack, take him and dump him on the street, make sure he doesn't have any weapons, or money."

"Yes, Leader." Drack growled, and grabbed the Bothan with one giant paw and yanked him from the cockpit, his broken arm flopping behind him. Drack returned in a few minutes. "We're ready Leader." The Shistavanen answered.

"Here, take this commlink, I have it set to the ship comm, so we can talk, and I can pick you up, or something, maybe get you where you want to go."

"The ship might get swamped if you land among the slaves."

"I know, but I can pull it on the fly, and if others manage to hang on I guess they can come along to the next spaceport. Here we go." Mar eased the repulsorlifts in and the ship lifted from the ferrocreate floor.

The Comet's engines roared and the journey that had taken them two hour during the night, took 15 standard minutes in the air. Mar came in low over the compound, buzzing the overseers and slaves, after the second pass the overseers were shooting at the Comet. Mar flipped on the shields, even though she knew that hand weapons couldn't do to much damage.

"Ready?" Mar asked through the comm.

"Yes." Drack answered back.

"Go!" Mar yelled into the comm as she lowered the boarding ramp, and cut in the repulsors.

"Clear." Drack's voice came back, and Mar knew that they were all off.

Mar angled the Comet skyward and armed her missiles. The overseers were to distracted by the Comet to keep track of the slaves, and they had all scattered. Mar loosed off one of the missiles at the wall, and then an other, putting two gaping holes in the ornate wall. The ground unit, as Mar thought of them, were hopelessly outnumbered, and red blaster bolts were streaking towards them. The slaves were starting to stream towards the holes now seeing their chance to escape, many were even starting to fight with the overseers, knowing that it was their way out. The slave quickly over powered the overseers.

The mansion loomed off in the distance, Mar dropped the crosshairs on building, and fired an other pair of missiles. They hit the ostentatious front of the house, and detonated, spitting orange fire and shrapnel in all directions. Hopefully they would not be able to restart this place. With the overseers gone the slaves were streaming out the holes in the wall, waving to Mar in the Comet, and thanking the slaves that had returned to free them.

"Leader, we are done." Drack's voice came over the comm.

"Alright, I'll get you in the shroom fields." Mar answered, and put the Comet into a hover over the shrooms. "Who else is coming?"

"Just me, the others want to find people that are still slaves."

"Alright." Mar said, as she spotted Drack trotting across the field. She was aboard in a few minutes and the Comet was in hyperspace less than a half standard hour latter.

The End

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